RL4B: Relentlessly Looking For Beauty

Four days ago, I gathered four pills into my hand that I needed to take at four o'clock that afternoon. I carried them toward the kitchen, pausing to let my dogs out and back in, then emptied my hand onto the counter. There were only three pills. I panicked. I must have dropped my muscle relaxer.  I knew my dogs would be quick to eat anything they found on the floor, so  I retraced and searched the path I had taken. Twice. No sign of the small, white tablet. Unsure of which dog, if any, had discovered the pill, I hesitantly returned to my routine. About an hour later, I realized the consequence when my youngest dog, six-month-old Riley, began vomiting. I rushed to her and found she was barely able to stand on her noodle-like legs. Her snout was covered in thick, wet saliva and her eyes were unfocused. I carried her to a chair (grateful she only weighed  seven and a half pounds) , held her in my lap, and scrolled through my contacts list with a shaky hand until I fou...

Today is my nephew's fourth birthday, and it has reminded me not only of the changes associated with growing up, but also of how quickly time passes. When I look back on the last four years of my life, it's easy  to focus on what I've lost. Feb 2015 - The long hair that I loved to style has since been cut short due to my fatiguing arm muscles.  - Though I had just gotten my wheelchair, I only used it for certain tasks whereas today, I use it every time I leave the house.  - And I used to be able to take a nap anywhere, be it car, couch, or reclining lawn chair, but now I need a machine to support my breathing every time I want to sleep. But then I look at my nephew and see the beauty I have gained. Feb 2019 - I get a running hug from him each time I visit, and I am able to hug him in return. - He gets excited to show me what he's working on, whether it's building a creation with blocks, describing his imaginative world, or lining up and organiz...

As my physical abilities diminish, I have found a renewed comfort in reading books. Their stories allow me to escape into unique worlds, to learn new information, and to glimpse beauty through the eyes of many characters. I have written before about revisiting childhood joys , and though my love of reading began at a young age, the hobby has never really left me. Instead, it has developed and grown with me throughout the years.  However, I was reminded of its early entrance into my life by two things this week: a photograph and my current read ( The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, A Flavia de Luce Novel ).  In the picture, I am about seven years old and perched on a too-small tricycle with plastic wheels in a freshly-mowed green lawn. My heavy, chunky eyeglasses are falling down my nose as I concentrate on reading the paperback book in my hands, and though it is tank top and shorts weather, it's clear I can't be bothered with the typical distractions of summer. T...

Friday came and went, and my world didn't fall apart. F or the last eight years, on the   first Friday in  February, I have put on a fundraising drive for the American Heart Association's Go Red for Women campaign. It's a cause that I have cared about since being introduced to it twelve years ago in Washington DC. I have a condition called restrictive cardiomyopathy, which means my heart doesn't function normally and causes symptoms of congestive heart failure. After living with the diagnosis for almost a decade, I decided to do something with it, and I began advocating on behalf of the AHA. In my first year of joining their grassroots committee, You're the Cure , they invited me to the Capitol to speak with my congressmen. It was there that I learned the staggering statistic that heart disease is the number one killer of women, affecting one woman every 80 seconds. And I met women from all across the country whose stories were similar to mine: when we vi...